Not that we should appear approved, etc. The sense of the verse is this : We pray God that you do no evil, not in order that your good conduct may attest the excellence of our teaching and example, so that we shall be approved; but in order that you may do what is good, thus rendering it impossible for us to prove our apostolic authority by administering discipline. In that case we shall be as men unapproved. Stanley remarks that, in the light of this verse, Paul might have added to ch. 6 9, as without proof and yet as aprroved.

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Old Testament